Broadcasters face challenges in major upgrade to over-the-air TV
Even with endless options from streaming services, around a fifth of Americans still watch at least some of their TV the old-fashioned way — with rabbit-ear or rooftop antennas. Broadcast television is the easiest way to watch local and network TV for free without subscribing to cable or satellite.
Television stations in the Twin Cities and across the country are making major changes to the way they broadcast those over-the-air signals, with the promise of better reception and sharper pictures. But the rollout of the new technology has been bumpy.
The technical upgrades to over-the-air TV come as budget-conscious viewers continue to drop satellite and cable subscriptions in favor of streaming.
If you’ve strolled through the TV aisle at a big box store lately, you’ve probably seen buzzwords such as 4K Ultra HD, and HDR. This means that new sets can display images with far more detail, richer color and deeper contrast than the first generation of flatscreens that hit the market in the early 2000s.
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Streaming services such as Netflix have been taking advantage of this improved picture quality for years. Now traditional broadcasters are trying to catch up. Anne Schelle with the broadcast industry consortium PearlTV, said a new over-the-air system known as NextGen TV is a response to demand from viewers.
“They’re wanting better quality. They’re wanting 4K, high dynamic range, which is now available for video, better audio quality, and interactive services,” Schelle said.
NextGen is the biggest change to broadcast TV’s technical standards since 2009, when stations shut down the analog signals that they’d been transmitting since the 1940s and transitioned fully to digital. After the changeover a decade and a half ago, viewers had to buy a new TV or get a converter box. Television stations eventually plan to shut off their first-generation digital transmitters, but the Federal Communications Commission is requiring them to continue transmitting signals in the old format, known as ATSC 1.0, through mid-2027.
The rollout of NextGen, which is also called ATSC 3.0, started in 2020 in Las Vegas. In the years since, stations in most major metropolitan areas have started broadcasting in the new format, and it’s available to around three quarters of American homes.
In the Twin Cities, WCCO channel 4, KSTP channel 5, KARE11, Fox9, and WUCW channel 23 began transmitting NextGen signals in August. Twin Cities PBS followed in October.
Eric Koester, an electrical engineer and amateur radio hobbyist who lives in Minnetonka, was eager to try out the new technology. Koester, 55, bought a NextGen receiver as soon as they hit the market and long before the signals were available in the Twin Cities.
Koester plugged in his outdoor antenna and connected the tuner to his living room TV via a computer. He uses a remote control to activate the receiver’s app and tunes in KSTP’s NextGen signal.
The picture looks great, but Koester points out that it’s still no better than the original digital channels because most broadcasters have yet to upgrade their equipment to produce shows in ultra-high definition.
“We’re not getting HDR, and we’re not getting 4K. This is a 4K TV. It would show a 4K picture if it was being transmitted, but it’s not,” Koester said.
Then, Koester changes channels and points out a problem that’s bedeviled many early adopters of NextGenTV, a blank screen with an error message noting that the signal is encrypted.
“If you try to tune in one of the other ones, we get ‘unable to play channel, content protection required.’”
Koester said that if he were to purchase a new television with a built-in NextGen tuner, he’d likely be able to receive the encrypted channels that he’s unable to watch with his early model external receiver. Unlike many set-top boxes, TVs with integrated NextGen tuners are able to decrypt content-protected channels.
But why are broadcasters suddenly encrypting signals on stations that viewers have been able to watch and record freely for decades? PearlTV’s Anne Schelle said the same content protection technology that streaming providers have long used is necessary for over-the-air TV to prevent piracy. She said that makers of set-top tuners are still working on solutions to the content protection problems that would likely be included in future firmware updates.
Even as early-adopters deal with restrictions on some channels, the rollout of NextGen is facing another hurdle. After losing a patent lawsuit, the electronics giant LG — a major backer of the new broadcast technology — said in recent Federal Communications Commission filing that it would not include NextGen capability in its 2024 line of televisions.
Consumer Reports electronics editor James Willcox said that NextGen promises big upgrades for over-the-air TV. But he fears that stations could use digital rights management to limit viewers’ ability to time delay shows or save recordings, something they have been doing for decades, first with videocassettes and later digital video recorders.
“It is giving broadcasters technological capabilities that they didn’t have up until now. That’s a concern, and consumer groups are watching to see what happens with it,” Willcox said.
Given the challenges with NextGen’s rollout, Willcox and other observers expect the FCC to extend the sunset date for first-generation digital TV broadcasts past 2027. That means if you watch TV with rabbit ears, there’s no need to adjust your set.
Traditional broadcasters are betting that viewers continue to use antennas to receive free programming unavailable online, especially sports.
To capture the audience of cord-cutting fans, some professional teams have moved away from regional cable networks in favor of broadcast TV. Among them is the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, which partnered with the antenna maker ChannelMaster recently to give away free antennas. The promotion was so popular, ESPN reports, that the team’s supply ran out and they had to order more.